Weapons, Ammunition or Explosives

Policy details

Change log

CHANGE LOG

Change log

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Current version

Jun 26, 2024

Weapons, Ammunition or Explosives

Ads must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition or explosives. This includes ads for weapon modification accessories.

Overview

Advertisers can’t run ads that promote the sale or use of weapons, weapon modification accessories, ammunition or explosives. However, they can run ads that promote products that aren’t directly sold as part of a physical weapon, as long as they are targeted to people 18 years or older.

Advertisers must follow our Community Standards, in addition to our Advertising Standards.

Guidelines

Ads can't promote:

  • Weapons or weapon accessories that can cut, slice, strike, penetrate, shoot or harm people or animals, including but not limited to:
  • Firearms, including firearms parts, ammunition, paintball guns and BBguns
  • Pepper spray, non-culinary knives/blades/spears, tasers, nunchucks, batons, or weapons intended for self-defense
  • Products that might be attached or used with a weapon to enhance or customize its form or function, including but not limited to:
  • Firearm silencers or suppressors
  • Optics and flashlights, such as telescopic sight, iron sight, target magnification or focus
  • Explosives, including fireworks
  • Entities where the exchange of weapons is the primary business model
  • Reviews of firearms or any other prohibited weapons or weapon modifications

Ads can promote:

  • Safety courses for firearm training or licenses as well as books and videos about firearm safety
  • The right to bear arms, such as U.S. second amendment rights content
  • Informative content on the subject of weapons
  • Blogs or groups connecting people with weapons-related interests, as long as the service doesn't lead to the sale of these products
  • Plastic guns, swords and toy weapons

Ads can promote the following when targeted to people 18 years or older:

  • Items that aren’t directly sold as part of a physical weapon, including but not limited to:
  • Equipment related to the practice of hunting, self defense or competition, like clay throwers, shooting targets, belts, protective vests, holsters, pouches or magazine holders
  • Military clothing
  • Items that carry, encase or support a weapon for easier transport or positioning
  • Items that coat or wrap a weapon, including gun cases, safes, locking devices, paint coatings, gun slings or tripod mounts
Reporting
1
Universal entry point

We have an option to report, whether it's on a post, comment, story, message, profile or something else.

2
Get started

We help people report things that they don’t think should be on our platform.

3
Select a problem

We ask people to tell us more about what’s wrong. This helps us send the report to the right place.

4
Check your report

Make sure the details are correct before you click Submit. It’s important that the problem selected truly reflects what was posted.

5
Report submitted

After these steps, we submit the report. We also lay out what people should expect next.

6
More options

We remove things if they go against our Community Standards, but you can also Unfollow, Block or Unfriend to avoid seeing posts in future.

Post-report communication
1
Update via notifications

After we’ve reviewed the report, we’ll send the reporting user a notification.

2
More detail in the Support Inbox

We’ll share more details about our review decision in the Support Inbox. We’ll notify people that this information is there and send them a link to it.

3
Appeal option

If people think we got the decision wrong, they can request another review.

4
Post-appeal communication

We’ll send a final response after we’ve re-reviewed the content, again to the Support Inbox.

Takedown experience
1
Immediate notification

When someone posts something that doesn't follow our rules, we’ll tell them.

2
Additional context

We’ll also address common misperceptions and explain why we made the decision to enforce.

3
Policy Explanation

We’ll give people easy-to-understand explanations about the relevant rule.

4
Option for review

If people disagree with the decision, they can ask for another review and provide more information.

5
Final decision

We set expectations about what will happen after the review has been submitted.

Warning screens
1
Warning screens in context

We cover certain content in News Feed and other surfaces, so people can choose whether to see it.

2
More information

In this example, we give more context on why we’ve covered the photo with more context from independent fact-checkers

Enforcement

We have the same policies around the world, for everyone on Facebook.

Review teams

Our global team of over 15,000 reviewers work every day to keep people on Facebook safe.

Stakeholder engagement

Outside experts, academics, NGOs and policymakers help inform the Facebook Community Standards.